Rick Derringer, the singer and guitarist who topped the US charts with his band the McCoys and was a sideman for a host of stars including Barbara Streisand, Cyndi Lauper and Steely Dan, has died aged 77.
The news was announced in a Facebook post by his close friend Tony Wilson, who did not give a cause of death.
While he didn’t achieve household name status, Derringer was one of the great Zelig figures of American pop and rock, in a career stretching back to his mid-teens.
Born Richard Zehringer in Ohio, he and his family moved to Union City, Indiana, where he formed garage rockers the McCoys. They got the chance to record their own version of the rhythm and blues song My Girl Sloopy, with a 17-year-old Derringer as frontman – renamed Hang on Sloopy, it reached No 1 in the US in 1965. After Ohio State University’s marching band started playing it at college football games, it got another boost in popularity and eventually, in 1985, Ohio designated it the state’s official rock song.
The McCoys had another US Top 10 hit with the follow-up, a cover of Little Willie John’s Fever. Come On, Let’s Go reached No 22 the following year and the group recorded five albums together.
The McCoys then partnered with blues rocker Johnny Winter for the group Johnny Winter And, who made the first recording of another Derringer rock classic: Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo. The definitive version came in 1973, performed by Derringer for his debut solo album All American Boy. This raunchy and swaggering hard-rock track reached No 23 in the US, and later earned high-profile syncs on the soundtracks to Richard Linklater film Dazed and Confused and the fourth season of Stranger Things.
Also in 1973, Derringer returned to the top of the US charts thanks to his production and guitar playing for the Edgar Winter Group (fronted by the brother of Johnny Winter), on the hard-rocking instrumental Frankenstein. He also contributed to their No 14 hit Free Ride the same year.
Derringer continued to release studio albums, eventually numbering 14 in all, but his most high-profile work came as a guitarist and producer for others.
By 1973 he’d already played on a couple of songs on Alice Cooper’s 1971 album Killer, and begun a fruitful partnership with Todd Rundgren, appearing on a number of his albums over the years. He later played on the Steely Dan albums Countdown to Ecstasy, Katy Died and Gaucho, and, in collaboration with Jim Steinman, two of the biggest power ballads of the 1980s: Air Supply’s Making Love Out of Nothing at All and Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Derringer went on to work with another Steinman acolyte, Meat Loaf, on the album Blind Before I Stop and the TV show Way Off Broadway, and played lead guitar on the Steinman-penned Left in the Dark, the lead single from Barbra Streisand’s 1984 album Emotion.
Another repeat collaborator was Weird “Al” Yankovic, including on his Grammy-winning Michael Jackson spoof Eat It. More cheerfully silly work was in the world of American wrestling, with Derringer writing Hulk Hogan’s theme song Real American and producing tie-in albums for the World Wrestling Federation.
The 1980s and 90s brought a partnership with Cyndi Lauper – Derringer played on her album True Colours and A Night to Remember, and joined her touring band.
He later went on three world tours with Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band, and recorded albums with his wife Jenda, including one with their children Lory and Marn. Derringer continued to tour throughout his life, and his most recent album Rock the Yacht, another collaboration with Jenda, was released in 2023.